Cursed Fates (Zodiac Academy, #5)

by Caroline Peckham

Because who I’d been before didn’t come close to deserving her. And at least now I was trying to be better. To be enough.

“My boy, I’d come for you if you were held by a million Nymphs. There’re no lengths I wouldn’t go to.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you and your sister. And that’s what you do for t...

Property of Azriel Orion.

If I knew things would be okay for me and Blue, life would have been a hell of a lot less stressful.

there was any justice in the world, that girl was not going to end up marrying my best friend. I’d marry him myself if that was what it took to keep him from ending up with the Ogre.

hate the days I don’t get to wake up with you,” he said, his voice rough from sleep. “For a second I thought it was one of those days.”

“One day soon, I’m going to shrink you down into a pixie-sized Fae and put you in a jar that I can keep in my pocket.”

“Maybe I’ll shrink you into a tiny little Vampire who can suck on my thumb while I go about my life kicking ass.”

Keep away from our throne boys. Away, away, away!

Without the fire coating them, the feathers of my wings were a deep bronze colour which shone like an oil spill with the deep red and blue tones of my inner flames glimmering in them when they caught the light. I flexed them out behind me and took off, heading for the gap which Orion had left in the shield surrounding Zodiac.

Well fuck perfect. There was no such thing. And all of life’s beauty was in the imperfections anyway.

“I’m only an asshole like, ninety percent of the time,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “The other ten percent I’m a fucking saint. So yes, I did it to help him. Turns out I only hold two members of your family in low regard.”

“I trust you,”

“You were right you know,” he breathed as if the others weren’t surrounding us and as I looked into his eyes, it almost felt like they weren’t. “I’m not good enough for you.”

Darius: Thank you, Roxy. This means more to me than words can convey.

“Beautiful Xavier, now let’s see your father feeding you one of the carrots,” Portia encouraged and the Heirs’ laughter rang in my ears.

She was like a beautiful monster, her skin laced with shadow, her power emanating from her body almost loud enough to hear.

I forgot to buy dessert but luckily, I have a can of whipped cream and a voracious appetite for you. So, I won’t go hungry at least. Selfish fucker, aren’t I?

I changed Lance’s name on my Atlas to Starboy so if anyone ever did catch sight of one of my messages, they wouldn’t know who it was from.

But he’d also accepted it. It made me feel like shit but there wasn’t much I could do about it without a time machine and even then, I wasn’t sure I’d take it back. Tory had been hurting so much when I’d gone to her that night. She’d needed me, not just wanted. She’d needed something to pull her back from the brink of despair and I’d been it. It wasn’t pretty or simple or easy, but it was life. And life just got messy sometimes even when you didn’t mean for it to.

Darius was my brother. He was nothing like his father and I didn’t for one second doubt him enough to worry about what he might do with that power. He’d never try to unseat us. Our bond was as unbreakable as sun steel.

“Oh, you want me to go deep, do you, Cal?”

“Stop flirting with me, asshole,”

“Stop smiling so much when I do then,”

“Whatever,”

He was the only Vampire in the whole of Solaria I’d ever let drink from me. And I was starting to get a taste for these games, even the biting. Shit does that make me a masochist?

was a serious shame he was straight. Well, at least when he was sober.

“I bought over three hundred thousand lottery tickets,” he said with a simple shrug like it meant nothing. “In fact, I’ve been buying that many every year since you lamented on your sixteenth birthday that you’ll never get to stick your dick in a moon crater. Figured it had to pay off eventually.”

I hugged him again because shit, this was the best present anyone had ever gotten me. And Alice had bought me a vibrating butt plug once that had changed my life.

If I was going to visit the moon, then I was going to make her proud of me first. So, I needed to talk to Darcy Vega.

She wasn’t scared for herself; she was scared for him.

If the stars have stolen sex

“Come on, Roxy,”

“Show us what you’re made of.”

But maybe I was a glutton for punishment or maybe I was addicted to the darkness because if there was even the slightest chance that I could have him, then I wanted it.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Roxy,”

I knew this wasn’t natural for him, he wasn’t programmed to share like this, but he was clearly willing to push against his instincts for this chance to be with me and my heart beat harder just thinking of that.

He might not like watching me with Caleb, but it was driving him to compete for my attention and the thought of it set my blood pumping with anticipation of what he might do next.

I gripped Darius’s hair and kissed him like I’d die if I didn’t. Because that’s what it had felt like these last few months, like I was slowly wasting away without him, drowning, suffocating, dying.

“We were made for each other, Roxy,”

“I know I don’t deserve you, Roxy. But I don’t think I can give you up even though I know that’s true,”

“The stars might have decided that you can never be mine,” Darius said roughly, refusing to move away from me. “But I am yours. No matter what. I don’t care where we end up or who we’re with, I’ll always be yours. And I’m going to fix the damage I did to us even if the stars don’t care. I’m going to prove to you that I could have been worthy of you if I’d just listened to my heart sooner.”

I couldn’t let Darius Acrux have my heart. No matter how much I ached for him. We were doomed anyway. Star Crossed. And even if we weren’t, I just couldn’t trust him with it.

“You’ll do great. You’ve been killing it in your practise sessions. You’re the best Pit Keeper we’ve had in years.”

“Are you just saying that to get into my pants, Coach?”

“No, Blue. I’m saying it because...

“You can’t seriously think I have anything other than appreciation for your bouncy Bettys or whatever you wanna call them. I just don’t want them on show for any and every asshole in sight,”

“Don’t tell me you want me all to yourself, you oily octopus,”